Credit

Caption

Electric lights for fishing. Historical artwork of 19th-century electric lights being used by fishermen on a river. The artwork is a sequence, running from left to right, showing the lowering of the net (left) below fish attracted to the light (centre) and the raising of the net to catch the fish (right). Experiments with electric lights for fishing began as early as 1856, with references in the works of the French Abbot Moigno, and the French writer Jules Verne. The first use of electricity as a light source dates back to 1801, though it was not until 1878 that a reliable light bulb was invented. Artwork from A Travers l'Electricite (G. Dary, Paris, 1900).